By Lisa S. Tarno

“If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.” James 1:5

In my last blog, The Season of Whoa!, I spoke of bundled hardships that weighed heavily on my heart and mind. Life is like that. At times it can be a heavy load, but I still worshipped God for who He is. Like I wrote, I poured out my heart to Him in earnest prayers of needing wisdom and perspective to filter all the happenings appropriately. The word that resonated for me to ask Him for was “perspective” because when we lack it, it skews everything.

All the stuff, the spinning plates, is still present but what I wanted to write about was this today. I am blown away with just a glimmer of perspective God gave both me and my husband. I had to share this! It all happened when I was preparing a presentation on making meaningful connections and when I tried to interface with the AV stuff at my church, interestingly enough I couldn’t connect…the irony is not lost. I tried to fire up my dinosaur MacBook 2012 laptop to see if I could load my PowerPoint on it. Alas, it’s beyond antiquated in the fast moving tech world and cannot load a current operating system and the applications that run on it. I have an expensive laptop that is the holder of my books to be published and over 7000 photos and videos that go back over 23 years!

Where am I going with this? Well like any good mother, I got lost in looking at the years of photos and videos and memories…like hours of good time spent! I found a treasure trove of footage I didn’t even know my husband had videoed. It brought laughter and tears. I literally have goose bumps as I write this now,….the thought came to me, “Seek and you shall find…” I asked God for wisdom and perspective and I just happened upon 23 years of precious memories neatly stowed on an archaic laptop. I shared some of the memories with my family over text, trying to not be too obnoxious but I am sure I was. Then, instead of watching tv last evening, my husband and I cozied up on the couch and watched a couple years worth of family footage and photos and reminisced. 

What we both realized together was just how good God has been to us over the years. Mind you, we have had some turbulent times and continue to but God IS GOOD! When we felt like “where had we gone wrong with parenting?”, we saw footage of where we went right. We saw happy children and smiling faces and laughter and our attempt of building a faith filled home. What our kids do with that foundation is up to them now, but we DID DO right by them. 

I found precious memories in photos of my mother with her beloved grandsons. I sent screen shots of those memories to her phone and commended her for being a wonderful Nana to our boys. She has dementia, one of my spinning plates, and I hoped that by sharing a long term memory with her it would elicit some joy and rekindling of yesteryear. She did respond in the affirmative and was so thankful. Her moments of lucidity are a gift! I cry as I write this now…I miss all of my mom. Her lucid moments are becoming fewer and fewer only to be replaced by an angry and confused soul. I pray that God would sweetly take her home to be healed and restored on the other side of heaven and not prolong this brain eating disease. I literally am weeping as I write this.

We saw all the family moments of holidays that were a LOT of work but how we created meaningful moments for all of our family…no regrets there! And the perspective was given to both my husband and I of how greatly God had been protecting us ALL these years and continues to do so! Sometimes the evil we don’t see, that could have caused irreparable damage, is lost on us because we don’t have perspective. But the irrefutable truth is my God is thee god who can redeem ALL things so nothing is lost or too difficult or beyond repair for Him. I know this to be true…but when heaviness in life clogs our perspective, we can have a distorted view of things. 

I prayed for wisdom and perspective…and He gave it to me just like it says in James 1:5 He will do. I only “happened” upon this treasure trove with my old laptop that I hadn’t even used in over three years because of necessity for my presentation.  I had to power it up first because it had been sitting there dead on my desk while I happily utilized my IPad instead. What a gift! What a treat! Something disregarded became a wealth of wisdom and perspective. 

One other scripture I am now praying in the midst of a heavy season is found in Isaiah 61:3. I like the King James Version of this, that God would give me “the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness” and to make that exchange. 

Prayer: Father God, I bring you my heavy season of life with all the things You already know about. Give me the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. Grant me the oil of joy for mourning and bring about beauty in the ashes. (Isaiah 61:3) Continue to give me your wisdom and perspective and help me not to lose sight in this valley. (James 1:5) Surely Your goodness and mercy will pursue me all the days of my life. (Ps 23) In Jesus name I pray.